The son of character actor Sir Bernard Miles, John Miles was a student of engineering who began his racing career in 1963. Nicknamed ‘Diva’, after the Ford-engined sportscar in which he achieved his early successes, Miles deceived his bespectacled and soft-spoken character by proving a formidable opponent on the British GT racing scene, where he won a number of championships driving the aforementioned Diva and later on a Lotus Elan. The latter machine in particular proved to be an iron boot with which Miles stomped on the opposition in the 1966 Autosport Championship, taking fifteen wins in a total of seventeen starts.

The level of success Miles achieved in the Elan would inevitably bring the attention of Colin Chapman, leading the then-23-year-old Miles into a more intimate relationship with the Lotus marque and to his becoming one of the first drivers to race in the now iconic Gold Leaf colours. More winner’s trophies would come in Miles’ possession behind the wheel of a works Lotus 41 in Formula Three and a Europa in GTs.

Although due a season of Formula Two racing with the semi-works Roy Winkelmann team as part of Lotus’ efforts in that category, Miles was fast-tracked to Formula One in 1969 as the main test driver for the four-wheel-drive Lotus 63, regular drivers Graham Hill and Jochen Rindt raising strong objections to the car’s handling and outright refusing to drive it. They were proven correct: in racing conditions, the 63 was uncompetitive in Miles’ hands – and in those of Mario Andretti on two occasions when the Italian-American legend drove it – and the erstwhile stubborn Chapman finally shelved the project. In spite of this, however, Miles found himself promoted to the position of number two driver alongside Rindt after Hill’s leg-breaking accident at Watkins Glen.

Miles began 1970 in an updated Lotus 49 and finished a rather modest fifth in the season-opening South African Grand Prix. Unfortunately, this would be the high point of his Grand Prix career: while Rindt proceeded to dominate in the revolutionary new Lotus 72, Miles managed no better than seventh in the remaining races. Things ultimately came to a head at the fateful Italian Grand Prix weekend, where Miles had a rather heated disagreement with Chapman regarding the latter’s decision to remove the wings from Miles’ car in an effort to reduce drag. Miles found the handling of the 72 to be very unstable in this condition but Chapman overruled him, and the wings stayed off. Miles ultimately didn’t race due to Rindt’s fatal accident and the Lotus team’s subsequent withdrawal.

That was the last time Miles drove for Lotus; like much of the rest of the team at the time, he was shaken by the death of the champion-in-waiting. Two weeks later he received a phone call from Lotus team manager Peter Warr, informing him that his place was to be taken from that point forward by Reine Wisell. “I was heartbroken at the time, but, in retrospect, Colin was probably right. The team needed fresh faces, not somebody whose confidence was at a low”, he later reflected.

Miles later found employment at BRM in 1971, though in the reduced role of test driver, with race outings in non-championship meetings at Brands Hatch and Hockenheim. He also returned to the local sportscar scene, where he returned to winning ways at the wheel of a Chevron B19.

Miles hung up the helmet and goggles in 1973 to take up a job writing for Autocar, where he put his driving knowledge to good use as a road tester, before returning to Lotus – this time in the road car division – where he contributed his engineering know-how for nearly two decades, even doing part-time work for the ailing F1 team in the early 1990s. Following his departure from Lotus, Miles did a three-year spell at Aston Martin, before he decided to wind things down. Among the designs Miles was involved with as an engineer were the Ford Focus, the Lotus Elan M100 and the Aston Martin Vanquish. Miles’ last job was as a consultant for Multimatic, where he spent much of the last fifteen years or so. Outside the automotive world, he was also the head of ‘Miles Music’, a jazz record label.

John Miles died as a result of complications following a minor stroke on April 8, the day after the 50th anniversary of fellow Lotus driver Jim Clark’s fatal F2 accident. Modest in all the ways one would never come to expect from a Grand Prix driver, Miles was a man of great intelligence with enviable talents as a sportscar racing driver, test driver and engineer.

]]>The 2018 GPR Season Previewhttps://gprejects.com/news/the-2018-gpr-season-preview
Thu, 22 Mar 2018 06:00:38 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1666It’s that time of year again; excitement is building within as we draw closer to seeing 20 of the best drivers on the planet take up arms and do their talking on the tarmac. Formula One is upon us once.

The F1 fanbase will be hankering over a possible three-way battle for top honours, with Red Bull and Ferrari poised to finally knock Mercedes off the perch which they’ve occupied happily since 2014. Sebastian Vettel gave it his all in 2017 to break the Silver Arrows stranglehold up front, only for a terrible run of luck after the summer to derail his challenge. Lewis Hamilton was therefore gifted an easy run to his fourth championship, but the results table doesn’t tell the full story.

The main source of controversy over the winter months was the FIA’s newly mandated “halo” cockpit protection. Arguments raged online and in print over the merits of the design, one that continues to rumble on. Other stories which dominated the off-season included McLaren’s switch to Renault power, with Toro Rosso taking up the challenge of developing Honda’s troublesome power unit. Having delayed the inevitable for a season, Felipe Massa has called time on his career. He’ll be joined on the sidelines by Pascal Wehrlein, with two years of superlative performances in sub-par machinery apparently not being enough to keep the talented German on the grid. The F1 circus has also said goodbye to the Malaysian GP, ending a 19 year run at a circuit which was fast becoming a modern classic.

The French Grand Prix returns to the calendar after a ten-year absence, with the Circuit Paul Ricard playing host. An even longer sabbatical of 33 years has been ended by the return of the legendary Alfa Romeo name, as a partner to the Sauber team. With new names and old favourites galore, it’s time we took a look at those who’ll be competing in 2018.

Mercedes AMG Petronas

Mercedes are the preeminent team in this hybrid-powered era of Formula One for a very good reason: they have won four out of four Drivers Championships, and four out of four Constructors Championships. However, that doesn’t mean they cannot learn from their opposition: last year, following the shock of Nico Rosberg’s retirement from the sport, they chose to adopt the Ferrari model of hiring a Finnish number two driver. Although strict team orders are rare at Mercedes (at least publicly), the fact that only one of their two drivers is among the fastest of all time does mean that a natural hierarchy is inevitable.

So can they make it five of each Championship out of five? Winter testing (and rarely can testing have been more wintery) suggested that Mercedes’ advantage over the rest of the field remains undiminished. Even the one possible spanner in the works – the reduction to only three power units for Mercedes’ use across the entire season – seems unlikely to bother them any more than anyone else on the grid: the very reason that Mercedes’ reliability problems have been so memorable is because they have been so rare.

In reality though, this is a bigger year for Valtteri Bottas than it is for Lewis Hamilton: Bottas is on his second one-year contract, and will be vehemently hoping that either he has a stellar season or Esteban Ocon morphs into Johnny Dumfries.

If they were a curry: Biryani: Rarely do you come across a particularly memorable biryani, but if you go to a new curry house and want something you can be sure of, then this is the most consistently tasty dish on the menu.

Scuderia Ferrari

This year will be Ferrari’s year, if you believe Ferrari. But last year’s was going to be as well, not to mention the three that preceded it. In reality though, Ferrari has not won a Drivers or Constructors Championship since 2008. This decade-long title drought is the longest since before Michael Schumacher transformed the team from tempestuous Italian also-rans into a well-oiled German winning machine.

Despite the presence of a new German multiple-World Champion at the helm, they have yet to return to winning ways. For every grazie ragazzi across the team radio, there’s a tantrum, or a complaint, or a headline about the working relationship (or lack of) between Maurizio Arrivabene and Sergio Marchionne.

Winter testing has not exactly done much to dispel that myth; though nothing went glaringly wrong in their first week at Barcelona, nothing went glaringly right either. It seems far more likely that they will be battling Red Bull for second than Mercedes for first. As comfortable as Sebastian Vettel may find it working with Kimi Raikkonen, it is beginning to seem that the lack of a challenge from his teammate has rather inured Vettel from reasonable criticism; if he finishes 40 seconds up the road from Kimi he can’t have done too badly.

If they were a curry: Jalfrezi: At its very best, it is a curry most people will love, but there is no real consensus on what that best is. Depending where you get it, your jalfrezi could be hot like a vindaloo, or mild like a balti.

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing

(Photo: Red Bull)

By the end of last season, the Red Bull-Renault Tag Heuer was good enough to win races on merit, despite an engine that was still estimated to be a good 100 hp down on the Mercedes. As encouraging as this is, the fact that it took them half a season to get there – along with being the anti-Mercedes in terms of reliability – will continue to be a concern at a Red Bull team that has grown entirely used to winning.

Of course, they remain the most recent non-Mercedes champions, and are in many people’s eyes the most likely team to take on the challenge of toppling them this season. They certainly have the drivers to do it; although Prost-Senna comparisons are hugely premature, the Red Bull pair are the closest to that legendary pairing that the grid has yet seen. There’s the established driver, able to eke out every last bit of performance from a car that’s far from the best on the grid to take unlikely wins, and to still be on the podium when he can’t. There’s also the younger man, perceived as more talented, purveyor of daring overtakes and supreme wet-weather drives. The main difference is that they seem to be the best of friends, though how long that would last if they were given the grid’s best car to play with is something the paddock and public alike are itching to find out.

If they were a curry: Madras: A perfectly good curry in its own right, and when it’s hot it’s very hot indeed. But you can’t shake the feeling that someone ordered it because they couldn’t quite stomach a vindaloo.

Sahara Force India F1 Team

(Photo: Sky Sports F1)

Force India are every fan’s second team: able to mix it with better-funded opposition with efficient chassis design, careful management of their drivers and access to the best engines available, they are Formula 1’s bright-pink equivalent of the Oakland Athletics. Unfortunately for Force India, Moneyball isn’t enough in F1: ultimately (unless it is wasted – looking at you Toyota) cash is king, and Force India don’t have enough to compete with top works teams.

Instead, they’re the best of the rest, and seem to be relishing that tag in every way: their chassis is the most balanced on the grid – never the best at any given circuit, but always well-balanced and good enough to get by; their drivers are a senior figure who didn’t quite cut it at the front of the grid and gets the best out of bad cars, and a junior driver who definitely will find a space at a top team, but isn’t quite there yet. They are an entirely sensible team, but they’re nobody’s dark horse for anything.

Especially not after winter testing, where analysts have tended to estimate their package to be about the seventh-best on the grid, behind Renault, McLaren and Williams. Even if that turns out to be true, Force India have been there before and have a knack for turning around a bad start, just as they did last year.

If they were a curry: Chat: A very good and tasty dish, but at the end of the day it’s a starter. They’re a stop-gap until the main event comes along, and even though they’re very good at it they will never be an entire meal on their own.

Williams Martini Racing

(Photo: Williams F1)

Williams has never been a team overly concerned about who drives its cars, as is reflected by the fact that nobody has ever won more than one World Championship for Sir Frank’s eponymous outfit, despite over two decades of providing some of Formula One’s very best cars.

But look how the mighty have fallen over the last two decades: that lack of care and attention for their drivers has led to a line-up that consists of Lawrence Stroll’s money (which came with Lance Stroll) and SMP Racing’s money (which came with Sergey Sirotkin). Although by the time they finally got round to actually naming a replacement, they weren’t exactly spoilt for choice. They weren’t willing to take a risk on an injured but potentially still brilliant Robert Kubica, nor were they prepared to gamble on an underfunded but demonstrably excellent Felix Rosenqvist. Nor would they offer a seat to a highly promising junior driver – either a Antonio Giovinazzi or a Pascal Wehrlein, or even a Lando Norris. Instead they followed the money.

It is telling perhaps that we’ve got so far without discussing their car: it appears to be quite troublesome. Unless either Stroll or Sirotkin is a far better driver than popular opinion seems to think, it’s going to be a torrid year for Williams.

If they were a curry: Chip shop curry sauce: You definitely remember it being the best thing ever when you were a kid, and when you’re drunk, you will proclaim loudly to your mates about how great it has always been and will be again at the end of the night. But as a sober adult you have to face facts: it doesn’t count as proper curry anymore.

Renault Sport F1 Team

(Photo: Renault Sport)

It was always going to be a long-term project when Renault reclaimed the shell of their former team that had been ailing under the Lotus name. They’ve definitely been making progress as well: from a bright-yellow backmarker, to a yellow-and-black lower-midfield team, to what they hope this year will be a black-and-yellow upper-midfield team.

They have certainly put in the investment, and have chosen drivers who they believe to be good enough to challenge for titles, but unlucky enough to have been denied the opportunity. Certainly, if the Renault package is as good as analysts have suggested after the first winter test (adjusted laptimes placed it as the fourth-best car present in Barcelona) then there is a fair chance that one of Nico Hulkenberg or Carlos Sainz could finally steal the podium that has eluded them for a combined 197 Grands Prix so far. But more realistically, each driver will finish the season with a brace of fourth places, for the fourth-best team out there.

However, should this trajectory continue, they might be able to field a jet-black Championship contender in 2019.

If they were a curry: Rogan josh: Like, it’s quite good. But if you ask someone to describe it, they’ll probably go “It’s a bit like…” Ask them why they chose it and it’s probably that they fancied something different. Nor is it especially reliable.

Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda

(Photo: Lukas Gorys/Marca)

The slightly renamed Red Bull Toro Rosso team: so good they named it twice. Though judging by the last time something in Formula One was named twice – the irrepressible Esteban Gutierrez Gutierrez – this does not necessarily bode well for the team that many of us still lovingly wish was Minardi.

Over the course of the off-season, they had become a meme before a wheel had been turned. Not that that is a huge surprise: powered by an engine that had previously powered McLaren to… well, had only sometimes powered McLaren, and piloted by a pair of drivers only ever seen circulating at the very back of the field amongst Saubers in a car that had worked perfectly well for Carlos Sainz, it was an easy target. Especially when parent company Red Bull decided that Toro Rosso was not obvious enough from a marketing perspective and added their name to the front of a team already named after them.

But after winter testing, there may still be hope. No team completed more laps than Toro Rosso, and they did so without issues or fuss. And their driver pairing consists of a GP2-champion and Super Formula moral victor, alongside two-time World Endurance Champion Brendon Hartley. Put all those bits into a James Key-designed chassis (which usually looks like the previous year’s Mercedes) and you might have a team that scores itself a reasonable number of points.

If they were a curry: Tadka dahl: A good, reliable curry, but not one that’s going to set the world alight. But that’s okay, because it’s a side dish not a main course.

Haas F1 Team

The team that definitely isn’t Dallara-Ferrari will be going into 2018 hoping for a strong start to the season. Obviously, every squad wants a strong start to the season more than a weak one, but for Haas it’s even more vital because their two seasons so far have shown that the only in-season development that seems to occur is in the livery department, not anything that brings gains on the timing screen.

Not to lay all the blame for that at the door of Haas; Formula One’s financial model meant that their operating budget was a fraction of that of any other team on the grid, but now that they have twice consecutively been classified in the top ten of the Constructors Championship they will be entitled to some more spending money. Now that they’ve survived the hardest phase for any Formula One team, they will be looking to climb into the midfield.

Our main gripe with Haas however, is that they aren’t more unashamedly American. In place of either Kevin Magnussen (the only non-Sauber driver to go the whole of 2017 without appearing in Q3) or Romain Grosjean (who has still not worked out to drive more slowly in the rain more than eight years after his debut), Alexander Rossi would doubtless do well enough. In place of the black in their livery, perhaps some blue to go with the red and white may make them more appealing to American sponsors.

If they were a curry: Chicken tikka masala: The Indian dish that isn’t from India; it’s the curry that most people actually order, despite it not being anyone’s favourite curry. The easiest option, but not necessarily the best.

McLaren F1 Team

Another team that can lay claim to one of the strongest driver pairings on the grid, McLaren must be yearning to have a season that lives up to their proud history for the first time since 2012.

The divorce from Honda was acrimonious, but also inevitable as McLaren haemorrhaged sponsors like… well, like a backmarker team. With Renault engines strapped into the back of what they have been claiming for some time is the best chassis on the grid, piloted by the man they have been claiming is the best driver on the grid, they have led us to believe that they should be fighting with Red Bull and the ever-improving works Renault outfit. Testing times tell a slightly different story, with analysts expecting them to be the third-fastest Renault-powered team but the fifth-fastest overall. A return to fifth place in the Constructors Championship, which felt so disappointing in 2004, 2013 and 2014, would now be hailed as a new beginning in Brackley.

Honestly, we want McLaren’s prospects to be as bright as their new papaya livery, but we would also find humour in Honda making rapid gains with Toro Rosso, should that indeed be the case.

If they were a curry: King Prawn Balti: You’ve tried all the more exciting sauces, but in the end, you’ve gone for a safer option. But instead of being boring, you’ve pushed the boat out, splashed the cash, in the hope of being the most exciting boring curry.

Alfa Romeo Sauber

(Photo: Sky Sports)

Last year, Sauber spent most of their time far enough off the pace that the only real airtime they got either involved being lapped, or being discovered in a wall somewhere far away from the racing line.

A series of off-season developments have offered hope of a more promising 2018; a closer partnership with Ferrari will see them plastered in Alfa Romeo logos and powered by current-year engines. It also sees hugely exciting Ferrari junior Charles Leclerc take the second seat alongside Mercedes junior Pascal Wehrlein fellow Ferrari junior Antonio Giovinazzithe increasingly experienced Marcus Ericsson. In fairness to Ericsson, although he is not an exciting or especially respected choice, he should provide a reasonable barometer: more than one highly-rated driver has been partnered alongside him, and not flattened him enough to satisfy either the F1 press or the F1 subreddit.

Despite their shiny new car and their shiny new driver, considered by most the heir apparent to the seat that Kimi Raikkonen is keeping warm, testing times do suggest that Sauber will remain backmarkers. But not backmarkers by as far as last year, so we should see them actually battle other cars. Probably Toro Rosso, maybe Haas.

If they were a curry: Chicken Korma: It’s not particularly spicy or exciting, but a korma does its job just well enough for people to still order them. Although chicken is perhaps not the best meat to put in one, it’s the choice that’s made time and again.

]]>RejectWatch Recap 2017 – Part 3https://gprejects.com/news/rejectwatch-recap-2017-part-3
Sun, 07 Jan 2018 11:00:05 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1474Back in May we published a piece entitled “RejectWatch 2017“, in which we completed a census of Formula One rejects still active in other series. It’s time to have another gander at the newfound land these drivers discovered in their respective series in 2017.

As a brief reminder a reject is defined as an F1 driver who, assuming a 10-6-4-3-2-1 points system, has scored no more than two points in his F1 career. This year Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll escaped the ranks of rejectdom , leaving behind them Stoffel Vandoorne, Jolyon Palmer, Pascal Wehrlein, Marcus Ericsson, Pierre Gasly, Antonio Giovinazzi and Brendon Hartley.

Gabriele Tarquini spent the best part of 2017 away from competition, helping develop the new Hyundai i30 TCR. The car was green-lit in time for the final two rounds of the premier TCR championship in China and Dubai. Tarquini and teammate Alain Menu were deemed ineligible for points, but this didn’t stop Gabriele from winning the very first race and recording two more top ten finishes in the other three.

World Touring Car Championship

In the last year of WTCC before its merger with TCR, 2009 champion Gabriele Tarquini made a return to Honda to replace Tiago Monteiro in China. However, non-compliant fuel injectors resulted in the works team being excluded from the results. Gabriele was then unceremoniously replaced by Esteban Guerrieri.

Audi Sport TT Cup

It may seem odd to include a DTM feeder series without mentioning DTM itself, but while the main championship has no active rejects the Audi Sport TT Cup occasionally features some as guest drivers.

In between driver coaching and mentoring commitments, notorious Twitter troublemaker Giedo van der Garde made a guest appearance at Zandvoort. He finished the two races in seventh and twelfth. Ayrton Senna’s first teammate Johnny Cecotto did the same at the Nürburgring after over ten years away from competition, recording seventh place in the second race.

At the end of the season, Audi also held an invitational Race of Legends in Hockenheim for notable drivers from its history including Le Mans winners Emanuele Pirro, Hans-Joachim Stuck and Tom Kristensen, but also rejects like Lucas di Grassi and Minardi and Simtek driver emeritus Jean-Marc Gounon, who had retired a few years earlier. The race was won by Frank Stippler, with di Grassi second and Gounon a respectable sixth.

Stock Car Brasil

Antonio Pizzonia tortures his left front, Stock Car Brasil.

Antônio Pizzonia‘s season didn’t get to the best of starts, attracting criticism for a stupid accident at Velopark in the second round. His season improved with a second in Santa Cruz, and while four more top ten finishes followed, the man they call “Jungle Boy” could not find the rostrum again. Pizzonia has been average at best since he took up the series in 2007, and 16th overall was par for the course.

Argentine touring cars

Argentina’s long-running Turismo Carretera has no shortage of drivers, and two of Argentina’s three most recent F1 drivers still ply their trade there. Former Minardi man Gastón Mazzacane finished the season in a well-deserved fifth overall, by far the best result for the Chevrolet aficionado since his 2009 début.

Gaston Mazzacane at the wheel of a Chevy (allegedly), in Olavarría (Photo: Tony Bosco)

Former series champion Norberto Fontana had a tougher season, struggling to string results together. A single podium left him in 19th, possibly hampered by his concurrent schedule in the lower-tier Turismo Nacional. This was Fontana’s first season in the championship, and much like in Turismo Carretera he only scored one podium and scraped into the top 20.

To cap his season, Norberto also entered the 200km of Buenos Aires endurance event in the rival Super TC 2000 series with Gabriel Ponce de León. Fontana, a two-time Super TC 2000 champion, finished the race eighth.

Stadiums and Rallies and Ice, oh my!

As mentioned in the May article, many other drivers have turned to irregular appearances in far more niche segments of the motorsport landscape.

Few events are more eclectic than the Race of Champions, held this year at Marlins Park in Miami. Of the 20 drivers participating, two of them were F1 rejects; Scott Speed and Alexander Rossi. Driving for Team USA Rally X and Team USA IndyCar respectively, Rossi defeated Speed in a pre-qualifying playoff, only to be knocked out in the group stages. In the Nations Cup, Team Rally X were knocked out in the group stages, while Team IndyCar reached the semifinals, only to be sent home by Team NASCAR. Pascal Wehrlein also took part, but a scary accident left him sidelined for months, leading to Antonio Giovinazzi‘s Formula One début.

Early in 2017, Karun Chandhok and Steve Tandy decided to ply their trade in the British LMP3 Championship’s Donington round. Driving a T-Sport Ligier, the pair finished third and fourth in the two races.

Organised as a standalone event since 2012 and previously won by the likes of Gianmaria Bruni and Bernd Schneider, the Gulf 12 Hours in Abu Dhabi attracted two rejects from their usual gigs this year. Jan Lammers drove the Target Racing Lamborghini with Karim Al Azhari and Sarun Sereethoranakul, while Norberto Fontana drove a Porsche 911 with Lucas Colombo Russell and Esteban Gini. Competing in the GTX-1 and GTX-2 classes respectively, both drivers won their class.

Shinji Nakano made an appearance in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Asia in the Suzuka round. Without much pressure, he finished both races in the top ten.

When he’s not racing Corvettes in IMSA, Jan Magnussen returns to his native Denmark to compete in the Thundersport Championship, which he won in 2012. Jan won seven races, the most of any driver and increasing his career total to 28. However, Lasse Sørensen was more consistent and attended all rounds, pipping Jan to the title.

Jan Magnussen , Thundersport series

Though he has largely ceased his racing activities, newly-hired IndyCar steward Max Papis found the time to compete in a NASCAR K&N Pro Series East race at Watkins Glen in August. Having not driven in NASCAR since 2013, the road course specialist failed to finish.

Erstwhile ATS and Surtees driver Michael Bleekemolen has been regularly racing Renault touring cars since 1983, and remains successful to this day. In 2017, he turned up to four rounds of the Central Europe Clio Cup, recording five top ten finishes. He also entered the Pau round of the French championship to no success.

Aside from this, Bleekemolen entered the Spa round of the Benelux-based GT & Prototype Challenge, promptly finishing second in the second race. Noted Spa specialist Eric van de Poele also took part, failing to finish either of his only races of the year.

The Nürburgring 24 Hours remains a low-key yet prestigious event open to over 200 cars. This year, the GT class and race were won by the Audi of Connor de Phillippi, Christopher Mies, Kelvin van der Linde and Markus Winkelhock, who took his second win in the race. Defending race winner Bernd Schneider also competed but disappointingly finished outside the top ten.

The Nürburgring-only VLN series attracts much the same entrants at the 24 hours, and this year Winkelhock scored two podiums including a win in October. Schneider had no such joy, finishing well down the order in his only entry, while Will Stevens appeared twice with equally little success.

The Endurance Series division of the Brazilian Porsche GT3 Cup attracts various international drivers. This year, it tempted 12-time Stock Car Brasil champion and former Fittipaldi driver Ingo Hoffmann back to the cockpit, co-driving with Felipe Nasr in Mogi Guaçu. Despite little recent experience in the series, the duo finished a commendable fourth.

Making cameos in local single-make series, EuroBrun stalwart Oscar Larrauri appeared at the Buenos Aires round of the Argentine Fiat Abarth Punto series, while David Brabham turned up to the Bathurst round of the Australian Toyota 86 Racing Series. Both drivers walked away with top ten finishes.

Mid-70s Ensign and BRM driver Mike Wilds recently returned to full-time racing in the Britcar Endurance Championship after a brief time out. This year, he and Dino Zamparelli entered the first two rounds, and promptly won the first race. This matched Wilds’ 2016 form, when he also won a race with his son Anthony.

Historic racing remains fertile ground for older drivers to stay active long after their careers in new machinery in a more relaxed environment. 76-year-old Le Mans legend Derek Bell competed in the odd Goodwood race, as did presenter of Gears (both Top and Fifth) Tiff Needell, while Martin Donnelly retired from an old GT race in Brands Hatch.

The Global RallyCross Championship has recently boiled down to battles between Tanner Foust and Scott Speed, and 2017 was no exception. Foust won five races to teammate Speed’s four, but it was consistency that propelled Speed to a third consecutive title.

Going further off road, noted rally dabbler Stéphane Sarrazin added the Tour de Corse to Formula E and WEC to his portfolio this year. Making his first World Rally Championship appearance since 2015 and second since 2006, Sarrazin finished ninth to maintain his habit of scoring points in tarmac events.

Finally, we close with the driving instructor, TV commentator, car reviewer, management consultant, urban marketer, event organiser, drone pilot and DJ to the masses: Franck Lagorce. The man with his fingers stuck in the most diverse of arrays of pies has competed in the ice racing Andros Trophy for over ten years, recording 20 race wins and consistent points. At the time of writing, he is fifth in the 2017-18 championship thanks to a dominant win at L’Alpe-d’Huez.

It may be tempting to consider a driver’s career to end the moment they step away from Formula 1. If you take anything away from this piece, let it be that this is not true. In any cases, a driver’s career out of F1 may very well be far more interesting than their career within it.

]]>RejectWatch Recap 2017 – Part 2https://gprejects.com/news/rejectwatch-recap-2017-part-2
Sat, 06 Jan 2018 11:00:09 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1472Back in May we published a piece entitled “RejectWatch 2017“, in which we completed a census of Formula One rejects still active in other series. It’s time to have another gander at the newfound land these drivers discovered in their respective series in 2017.

As a brief reminder a reject is defined as an F1 driver who, assuming a 10-6-4-3-2-1 points system, has scored no more than two points in his F1 career. This year Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll escaped the ranks of rejectdom , leaving behind them Stoffel Vandoorne, Jolyon Palmer, Pascal Wehrlein, Marcus Ericsson, Pierre Gasly, Antonio Giovinazzi and Brendon Hartley.

The Stéphane Ratel Organisation organises a staggering number of grand touring championships, many of them under the Blancpain umbrella.

The main Blancpain GT Series is a combination of two championships, the Endurance Cup and the Sprint Cup. The all-reject duo of Will Stevens and Markus Winkelhock shone in the Sprint Cup driving the Team WRT Audi. After a rough start, they won the Main Race in Zolder and scored three more podiums. In contention for the title until the final race, they had to be content with second place to teammates Stuart Leonard and Robin Frijns.

For Endurance races however, Stevens joined the other Audi pairing of Marcel Fässler and Dries Vanthoor, while Winkelhock drove with Team Saintéloc in Le Castellet and Spa. The Brit had no luck, failing to finish any Endurance race, while the German fared much better, winning the Spa 24 Hours for the second time with Christopher Haase and Jules Gounon. Meanwhile, Stevens was replaced for the event by André Lotterer.

The Audi of Markus Winkelhock, Christopher Haase and Jules Gounon win the 24 Hours of Spa.

Olivier Beretta was the only reject to compete in all Endurance Cup events, driving for AF Corse with Lorenzo Bontempelli and Motoaki Ishikawa, with a top 20 finish in Spa being the highlight. 24th in the Pro-Am championship standings was small comfort for the Monégasque who was one of the world’s best GT drivers for a decade.

Returning to Blancpain after a year mostly away from racing, Tomáš Enge appearedat Paul Ricard and Catalunya for Reiter Young Stars with Caitlin Wood and Marko Helistekangas with little success.

The Intercontinental GT Challenge, loosely consisting of the Bathurst 12 Hours, Spa 24 and Laguna Seca 8 Hours, is rarely taken seriously. Only four drivers entered all three events, one of them being Markus Winkelhock. With different teammates each time, Winkelhock won in California on top of his Spa win. This was enough to seal the title ahead of his Spa teammate Haase.

Entering just Bathurst as GT mercenaries, Pedro Lamy failed to reach the finish in his Mercedes-Benz co-driven by his usual teammates and DTM legend Bernd Schneider, as did Tomáš Enge in the M Motorsport KTM.

At the end of the year, the Ratel Organisation organised the third FIA GT World Cup, an invitational GT3-only event in the streets of Macau. Lucas di Grassi was invited to drive an Audi R8 LMS, but his appearance was short-lived as he suffered two accidents in two races, completing a total of five racing laps. The weekend was dominated by Macau specialist Edoardo Mortara.

2017 was also the first season of Blancpain GT Series Asia. The full season benefited from the presence of Malaysian Minardi driver Alex Yoong, sharing an Audi R8 with Alex Au to three podiums and second place in the Pro-Am standings behind Hunter Abbott. Joining the South East Asian specialist in the Sepang opener as part of an aborted attempt at entering the Asian racing scene was Will Stevens, who recorded a Pro-Am podium with Jeffrey Lee.

Finally, although he chiefly stars as an actor and commentator these days, Paul Belmondo appeared as a guest driver in the GT4 European Series Southern Cup round in Barcelona, seemingly on a whim. He and Thierry Soave finished both races out of the top 20, positions Belmondo was used to in his F1 days.

Jan Magnussen, 24 Hours of Le Mans 2017 (Photo: Corvette Racing)

24 Hours of Le Mans

As mentioned in the article earlier this year, the endurance representative of motorsport’s Triple Crown accepts entries from championships aside from the WEC. In the LMP2 class, Channel 4 pundit Karun Chandhok finished 11th in a Tockwith Motorsports Ligier, two spots and eight laps ahead of ELMS regulars Jan Lammers, Frits van Eerd and Rubens Barrichello.

Jan Magnussen, Antonio García and Jordan Taylor were leading the LMGTE Pro class for Corvette, until a last-lap puncture demoted the team to third behind the winning Aston Martin. The LMGTE Am category meanwhile was won by Will Stevens with Blancpain co-star Dries Vanthoor and later ELMS compère Robert Smith in the JMW Ferrari.

Creventic Series

The Dutch company organises three championships, nominally for GT, touring cars and prototypes. The first two comprise a loose assortment of 12 and 24-hour races held around the world, aiming for a relaxed atmosphere.

As a result, few major drivers compete in it for more than a race on weekends away from their regular engagements. This year, Bernd Schneider was the only reject to do so twice in the A6 class, driving his usual Mercedes in Dubai and Mugello without troubling the top 20. All others only appeared once.

In the premier A6 class, the season-opening Dubai 24 Hours was won by Brendon Hartley in a Porsche 991, while Jean-Éric Vergne retired a Renault RS01 from the same class co-driving with Louis Delétraz (son of reject legend Jean-Denis Delétraz). Also in Dubai, noted Dutch elder statesman Michael Bleekemolen drove a TCR Seat Leon with his son Sebastian, his first 24-hour race since 2010.

Brendon Hartley’s Porsche, 2017 Dubai 24 Hours

Later in the year, Tomáš Enge retired from the SPX class in Mugello driving a KTM X-Bow, and Jan Lammers did the same in Imola driving a Ginetta, achieving no success.

Many of these drivers were also spotted in the Touring Car Endurance Series, again for just one race to complement their calendars. Schneider furnished his sparse calendar with 16th in the Spa 12-hour race and Lammers competed in the 24-hour event in Misano, finishing in last place. Jan was joined on the Misano grid by Gabriele Tarquini, his new Hyundai failing to finish. However, Bleekemolen had the most success by surprisingly winning the TCR class at the Barcelona 24-hour event.

International GT Open

This offshoot of Euroformula Open consisted of seven double-headers across Europe, and was the full-time focus of Vitantonio Liuzzi, driving a Lamborghini Huracán to three podiums in the Pro-Am class with Hiroshi Hamaguchi. This marked the Italian’s rather disappointing return to full-time racing. Tomáš Enge also entered the Pro class in Spa-Francorchamps with Craig Dolby in a Lamborghini Gallardo, but they finished last in the first race and did not start the second.

ADAC GT Masters

Germany’s own highly-competitive GT series was another of the many championships that Markus Winkelhock tried his hand at. His second season in the category proved even less successful than the already meagre first, as he and Mücke teammate Filip Salaquarda could only record two top ten finishes.

Andrea Montermini leads the field at Virginia (Photo: Pirelli World Challenge)

Pirelli World Challenge

The all-purpose Pirelli World Challenge attracts an eclectic mix of GT and touring car racers. Both competing in races counting towards the SprintX GT Championship, two rejects had cameos with varying success. Simtek, Pacific and Forti titan Andrea Montermini allied with Daniel Mancinelli for the Virginia round, winning his very first race in the series and finishing fourth in the other. Indefatigable hired hand Will Stevens also appeared in Utah paired with Andrew Kim, finishing the races in 14th and 31st place.

Super GT Series

The first and foremost of three Japanese championships tackled in this article, the Super GT Series has long been Japan’s premier tin-top category. This year’s reject flag was chiefly flown by Kazuki Nakajima, returning to the series after two years away. Co-driving a Toyota with James Rossiter of near-USF1 fame, he took victory at Autopolis, but despite consistent scoring further podiums were not forthcoming.

In the lower GT300 class, it was original Super Aguri driver Yuji Ide who represented the rejects. Driving the Elcars Bentley with Ryohei Sakaguchi, Ide continued his year-on-year slide down the pecking order. For the first time since 2006, Ide did not score a single Super GT point.

Two-time Super Formula champion Kazuki Nakajima‘s form in Japan’s premier GT series was rather similar to his Super Formula form. He and 2011 champion André Lotterer started the year with a win each, but a late-season charge allowed rookie Pierre Gasly to unexpectedly challenge for honours. With a half-point deficit going to the final round in Suzuka, Gasly interrupted his Toro Rosso campaign for a title shot. Unfortunately the meeting had to be cancelled amidst typhoon conditions, gifting the title to Hiroaki Ishiura.

Super Taikyu Series

Japan’s foremost super touring championship had two rejects in its 2017 ranks after lengthy absences from full-time racing. Former Prost and Minardi hand Shinji Nakano, after many years of sporadic GT appearances, drove the number 97 Honda Civic with Shinichi Ito and a rotating cast of third drivers in the TCR class. Nakano and his teammates won their class in Sugo and Okajima, but ultimately lost the class title by just four points to the sister Dome-prepared car.

Naoki Hattori – best known as Coloni’s last-ever driver – shared an ST-3 class Toyota with Takayuki Hiranuma and Shigekazu Wakisaka. Signalling a return after eight years away from competition, Hattori’s crew was similarly successful, reaching the class podium five times in six races, but a lack of victories left the team in third place.

Audi R8 LMS Cup

The single-make Asia-only championship has been the playground of Alex Yoong since 2012. Third that year, second in 2013, and champion the following three years, with 21 wins in 53 races, Alex was favourite to repeat his success.

However, the young Belgian driver Alessio Picariello had seriously challenged him in 2016, and went one better in 2017. The 41-year-old Yoong fought back by winning two races, but inconsistency ended his title hopes, relegating him to fourth place. Will Stevens was initially poised to compete in the series full-time, but as other commitments piled up he postponed his entry and eventually was replaced by Stéphane Richelmi. Not surprising, as this is the sixth time in this article that Rochford’s finest has been mentioned!

]]>RejectWatch Recap 2017 – Part 1https://gprejects.com/news/rejectwatch-recap-2017-part-1
Fri, 05 Jan 2018 11:00:23 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1447Back in May we published a piece entitled “RejectWatch 2017“, in which we completed a census of Formula One rejects still active in other series. It’s time to have another gander at the newfound land these drivers discovered in their respective series in 2017.

As a brief reminder a reject is defined as an F1 driver who, assuming a 10-6-4-3-2-1 points system, has scored no more than two points in his F1 career. This year Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll escaped the ranks of rejectdom , leaving behind them Stoffel Vandoorne, Jolyon Palmer, Pascal Wehrlein, Marcus Ericsson, Pierre Gasly, Antonio Giovinazzi and Brendon Hartley.

Formula Two

It may seem counterintuitive to begin with Formula One’s main feeder series, but aside from providing the top championship with potential rejects, it’s occasionally seen drivers with a lack of success go back down a peg. This year, it was Roberto Merhi who found temporary drives with Campos and Rapax.

In his first appearances in the series formerly known as GP2, Merhi competed against two Swiss teammates: Ralph Boschung and Louis Delétraz. He failed to make Gruyère out of them, scoring 16 points in Spa and Monza which was enough for 18th in the overall standings.

Formula E

The 2016-17 season of the electric championship played out similarly to the previous one: a season-long battle between Audi and Renault, specifically between Sébastien Buemi and Lucas di Grassi. Buemi’s pace advantage increased this season as he stormed to six wins in the first eight races. Di Grassi’s consistent scoring allowed him to stay in touch with his rival, helped by Sébastien enduring amistake-prone race in Mexico and a disqualification in Berlin.

Things began to go wrong for the Swiss driver as endurance commitments forced him to miss the double-header in New York. Di Grassi scored valuable points while Buemi’s replacement Pierre Gasly scored an impressive 18 points, more than perennial Renault doormat Nico Prost. A dismal accident-filled weekend in Montréal followed for Buemi as di Grassi scored 34 points to win an unexpected maiden Formula E title.

di Grassi in Paris (REUTERS/Benoit Tessier)

The Techeetah team had a rather high concentration of rejects. Jean-Éric Vergne had his best season yet with five podiums culminating in victory in the season-closing race, earning him a well-deserved fifth place in the standings. His initial teammate Ma Qing Hua was soon replaced by Esteban Gutiérrez who recorded points finishes in his native Mexico and Monaco, followed by a trademark 11th place in Paris. Nonetheless, he was promptly turfed out in favour of the ever-competitive Stéphane Sarrazin, who had just left Venturi and would score two podiums for Techeetah.

This was in stark contrast with his fellow Francophone Jérôme d’Ambrosio, whose torrid year with Dragon Racing left him behind his teammate Loïc Duval in a disappointing 18th overall. Despite generally having the upper hand over Duval, Loïc was able to snag a couple of big results for Dragon, which found itself propping up the rear of the field after two successful seasons.

2017-18 has started rather differently, with Vergne’s strong Hong Kong offering leaving him second in the standings after the first double-header. Buemi, di Grassi and d’Ambrosio are nowhere to be seen. With the added presence of former F1 luminaries Nick Heidfeld, Nelson Piquet Jr and Kamui Kobayashi, along with GP Rejects favourite André Lotterer, the season promises to be very exciting indeed.

IndyCar

In a year where the Indianapolis 500 featured Fernando Alonso’s glorious run in the lead followed by Takuma Sato’s historic victory, other former F1 drivers involved in America’s premier open-wheel championship flourished as well.

2016 Indianapolis winner Alexander Rossi managed four podiums and a victory in Watkins Glen. Seventh overall suggested his Indy win may not have been a fluke. He’ll be looking to beat that result in his upcoming appearance on The Amazing Race with fellow driver Conor Daly.

Alexander Rossi and Max Chilton during practice for the 101st Indianapolis 500

The ultra-talented Max Chilton came on well in his second season, recording six top-ten finishes led by a commendable fourth place at Indianapolis. He came within seven points of outscoring his illustrious teammate Tony Kanaan and generally had the measure of other teammate Charlie Kimball.

Chilton’s final 11th place makes for a good segue into Esteban Gutiérrez, who made seven appearances for Dale Coyne halfway through the season. Esteban failed to score a top ten finish, in stark contrast to the man he was replacing, the injured Sébastien Bourdais. The Frenchman had won the season opener and followed it up with second at Long Beach, but a severe crash during qualifying for Indianapolis ended his unexpected title challenge, though Bourdais was able to return for the last couple of events.

World Endurance Championship

With Audi pulling out of WEC at the end of 2016, the Porsche-Toyota struggle for honours boiled down to two individual cars which swept the season. The all-reject Toyota of Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Anthony Davidson (joined in Austin by Stéphane Sarrazin) won the first two and final three races, while the intervening four rounds (including a thrilling recovery drive at Le Mans) were won by the Porsche of Timo Bernhard, Earl Bamber and then-future F1 driver Brendon Hartley.

By virtue of one more podium and Le Mans counting double, it was Porsche who prevailed for the third straight year, providing Bernhard and Hartley with a second WEC title. Behind them, the sister car of Neel Jani, Nick Tandy and André Lotterer recorded an impressive seven podiums but no victories.

The Vaillante Rebellion of Bruno Senna, Julien Canal and Nicolas Prost was often the best LMP2 entry, winning their class four times along with the title. In the meantime Jean-Éric Vergne toiled away for 15th overall with teammates such as Tor Graves, Jonathan Hirschi, Ben Hanley and Matt Rao. The man they call JEV was also replaced for the Nürburgring by Roberto Merhi, who finished ninth.

In the LMGTE Am class at Aston Martin, Pedro Lamy teamed up with Paul Dalla Lana for the fifth straight year and Mathias Lauda for the third. Thanks to four class wins, the trio won its first title after three years of narrowly missing out. At Le Mans, the LMGTE Am class was joined by GT veteran and soon-to-no-longer-be-the-last Monégasque F1 driver Olivier Beretta, who finished seventh in class for Spirit of Race with Thomas Flohr and Francesco Castellacci.

WeatherTech SportsCar Championship

The IMSA’s high tolerance for one-off entries makes it fertile ground for F1 rejects, and it didn’t disappoint. While no rejects competed in the Prototype class full time – Christian Fittipaldi was the only former F1 driver to do so – the GT Le Mans category was won by Jan Magnussen and Antonio García, the pair’s close-fought second title in nine seasons together and their first in IMSA.

Halfway through the season they were joined by Gianmaria Bruni. After nine years and two WEC class titles with Ferrari in GT racing, the Italian jumped ship to Porsche and teamed up with Laurens Vanthoor for the remaining seven rounds. Bruni and Vanthoor scored 186 points to the 185 scored by the sister car of Patrick Pilet and Dirk Werner in the same period of time, proving that Bruni is still as good a driver as ever.

As the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring remain prestigious endurance races, several WEC drivers attended them as endurance-only third or fourth drivers. Bruno Senna and Brendon Hartley teamed up in a Nissan, while Sébastien Buemi competed with Nick Heidfeld and Neel Jani for Rebellion. Both teams duly finished both races in the top ten, and the latter was joined in Daytona by Stéphane Sarrazin. Hartley and Senna also returned for the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, where the Brazilian finished fourth and the Kiwi took the overall win with Scott Sharp and Ryan Dalziel.

Sébastien Bourdais similarly appeared in the GT Le Mans class with Joey Hand and Dirk Müller, winning the class in Daytona and finishing second in Sebring. Pedro Lamy also raced at Daytona in the GT Daytona class with his regular WEC Aston Martin teammates and Marco Sørensen. They finished twelfth in class.

European Le Mans Series

Jan Lammers had largely stopped racing in serious championships after 2012 at the young age of 56, but following some historic racing in 2016 and his friendship with wealthy Minardi enthusiast Frits van Eerd, he returned in style with a full-time drive with Racing Team Nederland. Sharing a Dallara LMP2, the ageing Dutchmen were rarely competitive and recorded a high mark of seventh place at the Red Bull Ring, highlighting van Eerd’s inexperience and Lammers’ lack of practice.

Jan Lammers tests his Dallara LMP2 at Sebring

For the final two races, the LMGTE JMW Motorsport team benefited from the services of former Caterham and Marussia driver Will Stevens, who had been selling his services to any GT team around. Teamed up with Jody Fannin and Robert Smith in a Ferrari 488, the trio finished second in class in both Spa and Portimão to seal the class title by two points.

]]>The best of teams, the worst of times: A GPR advent calendarhttps://gprejects.com/news/the-best-of-teams-the-worst-of-times-a-gpr-advent-calendar
Fri, 01 Dec 2017 09:34:05 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=1299Nobody’s too old for an advent calendar, although years of cheap chocolate behind little cardboard doors ad nauseam have led us to come up with something a bit different for this year. A discussion on “the worst drivers at the best teams” in Formula 1 snowballed into something that we thought would be a great list-themed article, which we thought we’d turn into our very own countdown to Christmas!

Firstly, based on the not-at-all-vague metric of “general F1 success”, we drew up a list of 25 teams before swapping a couple out (sorry, Matra) if nobody stood out as particularly rubbish.

To rein us in with our driver choices, we came up with a few restrictions and guidelines. We opted to neglect one-off entries, unless the driver did something truly shocking. Works teams – mainly in the case of entries from the 1950s-70s – were prioritised, as were reject drivers. Per se, this isn’t a definitive list of the least talented drivers, but rather the drivers who produced the worst stints at each team.

We hope you enjoy this little run-down until Christmas, and keep checking back each day for updates!

December 1st – 5th

Dec 1: Alfa Romeo – Paul Pietsch

Alfa Romeo was Formula 1’s original tour de force, winning every single F1 race of the original World Championship season in 1950 and continuing on top form into 1951.

Alfa’s star line-up of Fangio and Farina was nearly unstoppable, but the supporting cast was not quite up to the same standard. By Germany the decision had been made to let go of the team’s regular third driver Consalvo Sanesi and to get a hold of some local expertise for F1’s first visit to the Nordschleife.

Alfa’s first choice was pre-war Mercedes Grand Prix legend Hermann Lang, who refused. Stuck for a replacement (and no, that is not a Hans Stuck pun), they approached Enrico Platé’s second driver Paul Pietsch, another man with plenty of ‘Ring experience. He was much more enthusiastic, which, as it would turn out, was a feeling he couldn’t keep in check when it mattered.

With a limited amount of time to practice, Pietsch did rather well to put the powerful 159 seventh on the starting grid. His experience initially came to be a useful asset as he ended the first lap in fifth place, but his seeming over-eagerness to show Grand Prix racing’s top team what he could do saw him immediately drop to the back after some off-roading on the second lap.

This only seemed to make things worse, for as Pietsch was dispatching the backmarker Talbots he went off-piste a second time, sending him backwards and over a hedge, luckily without injury. So much for twenty years’ experience.

Honourable mentions: We’d originally gone for Mario Andretti’s incredibly average stint in 1981, but Pietsch’s outing was deemed more embarrassing than Andretti’s time with Alfa’s second F1 attempt. Mauro Baldi and Eddie Cheever were considered, as was Toulo de Graffenried’s stint with Alfa’s original F1 foray.

Anthony Byrne

Dec 2: Arrows / Footwork – Taki Inoue

Throughout the combined fortunes of Arrows and Footwork, one name is so intrinsically linked with ineptitude that we’d be crazy not to include him in this list. Arrows had some rubbish drivers over the years, but none who were run over by a medical car. Step forward, Inoue-san.

Taki Inoue made his F1 debut at Suzuka with Simtek in 1994, thanks to a bulging wallet. Having proved to be little more than slow, Inoue still managed to find about $4m from a company from Unimat to purchase a seat at Footwork for ‘95 alongside Gianni Morbidelli. Feeling the pinch following reduced backing from Footwork chairman Wataru Ohashi, Inoue’s cash was a huge boost.

On average, Inoue was two seconds adrift of Morbidelli in qualifying, but the Japanese driver’s lack of pace wasn’t ever in question; instead, Inoue is best remembered for his pair of skirmishes with official track vehicles.

In Saturday morning practice at Monaco, Inoue had procured a tow from the marshals following a car failure, but hadn’t banked on the safety car – piloted by former rally driver Jean Ragnotti, no less – making contact and sending the Footwork into a flip, leaving Inoue upside down with a chunk missing from his helmet. Then, while fetching a fire extinguisher to save his smoky car at Hungary, Inoue was hit by the medical car and was sent sprawling onto the floor.

“They were just accidents, weren’t they?” Taki told Autosport in 2012. “No one did it on purpose…”

With Footwork struggling for cash in 1996, Inoue was asked to remain with the team, but he instead elected to join Pedro Lamy at Minardi. However, with sponsors Unimat and Clearly Canadian failing to come up with the cash, Inoue’s chances of remaining in F1 evaporated.

He’s since become something of a Twitter icon and helps young Japanese drivers fulfil their career ambitions in Europe, but no longer races himself.

“I was bad for the racing, so I shouldn’t do the driving…”

Honourable mentions: Ricardo Rosset took Inoue’s place at Arrows, and was arguably as useless. Inoue’s former team-mate Max Papis also got a nomination, as did Alex Caffi, while Enrique Bernoldi and Toranosuke Takagi were selections from the Tom Walkinshaw era.

Jake Boxall-Legge

Dec 3: BAR – Ricardo Zonta

When Zonta was announced as Jacques Villeneuve’s team-mate at the new British American Racing team, he arrived in Brackley with an impressive track record. Winning the 1997 edition of the International F3000 championship, Zonta joined BAR having just clinched the FIA GT championship with Mercedes the following year.

The Brazilian’s time in F1 began inauspiciously, retiring from the opening race of 1999 at Albert Park with a gearbox problem before injuring his foot in practice for the Brazilian Grand Prix, which kept him on the sidelines for three races – replaced by journeyman Mika Salo.

After returning to the wheel of his zip-liveried BAR 01, Zonta struggled with the chronic lack of reliability apparent in the Adrian Reynard-penned car. A monstrous shunt at Spa-Francorchamps in qualifying mirrored that of Villeneuve’s in the same session, and summed up an ultimately pointless and difficult first season with BAR.

Zonta scored three points for BAR the following year, one of them courtesy of Salo’s disqualification in Australia, also benefitting from the ill-fated first lap crash at Monza. Although his best performance of the year came at Indianapolis, over the year he was ultimately miles behind the pace of Villeneuve and was subsequently ditched, with Craig Pollock electing to bring in then-McLaren tester Olivier Panis after the season’s end.

Zonta’s only lasting legacy in F1 was at Spa, appearing in the oft-replayed video of Mika Hakkinen’s overtake on Michael Schumacher in 2000 – essentially using Zonta’s BAR as a distraction!

Ending up as an occasional substitute at Jordan and Toyota, Zonta never again graced the grid on a full-time basis, instead testing for a few teams before buying into seemingly every Brazilian racer’s retirement plan: Stock Car Brasil.

Honourable mentions: Takuma Sato’s 2005 was briefly considered, but a mega 2004 more than makes up for it. Zonta was the only real candidate here after failing to match F1’s Worst World Champion™.

Jake Boxall-Legge

Dec 4: Benetton – Emanuele Pirro

Although he’s better known these days for his five Le Mans wins and propensity to dish out time penalties aplenty as a steward, Emanuele Pirro once had a stable job in Formula One, plying his trade around Suzuka Circuit day and night as McLaren’s primary test driver for their Honda engine.

Highly regarded as a dependable driver, several teams in 1989 had eyed the Italian up for a drive. He was previously close to getting a seat at Brabham, and Larrousse had tried to get him on board to cover for Yannick Dalmas. On Ron Dennis’ advice, he waited out for a bigger offer. Then, Johnny Herbert had just been removed from his Benetton seat, so Pirro took that drive instead.

Saddled with the old B188 for his first two races for the team, exemplified by qualifying last at the British Grand Prix, Pirro received the new B189 chassis in time for Hockenheim. Everything seemed to be on the up as Pirro ran as high as third at one point, but a good result was thrown away as he went way wide into the stadium section, deflecting a styrofoam panel right to his head, requiring medical attention.

As Nannini seldom qualified below tenth place, Pirro seldom did the reverse. In ten attempts, Pirro only outqualified Nannini once, in Spain, and while he spent a good chunk of the race in fourth place, he crashed out of the race with 14 laps remaining. In total, Nannini scored 24 points over those 10 races, including a win in Japan. Pirro crashed out three times, including in that fateful Japanese Grand Prix, and could only boast a single fifth place in Australia, where Nannini was second.

Pirro wasn’t even notified he was fired from Benetton at season’s end, finding out the news through a magazine article. Post Benetton, he found refuge at Scuderia Italia where the rest of Pirro’s F1 career was characterised by numerous accidents and one single point scored in 1991. He then moved to sportscars, and the rest is history.

Honourable mentions: Benetton had a raft of strong drivers pass through its doors. Apart from Pirro, JJ Lehto was also considered, but his injuries largely explain his lack of pace with the team.

Luke Levy & Thomas De Bock

Dec 5: Brabham – Giovanna Amati

Giovanna Amati. Kidnapping victim. Friend of Elio de Angelis. Also, the last female driver to attempt to qualify for a Formula One Grand Prix. By every right, she shouldn’t have even been in the car in the first place.

Initially, Brabham wanted Japanese driver Akihiko Nakaya to partner Eric van de Poele but, despite finishing ahead of Johnny Herbert and Eddie Irvine in the standings, the FIA didn’t deem Japanese F3000 as a viable stepping stone to a superlicense, and so Nakaya was denied.

Amati, likewise, probably had no right to earn a superlicense as well. In her four futile years at attempting International Formula 3000, she failed to qualify for over half of her races. In a feeder series. She didn’t even score a point, something that even Jean-Denis Deletraz could laugh at. Yet, with the Italian Prime Minister being close friends with her late father, she managed to earn his funding to get a test at Brabham late into 1991.

In the wake of the Nakaya deal, with Brabham starving for funds, they gave into Amati dangling Italian lire in front of their faces, hiring her to partner Eric van de Poele. Somehow, Giovanna Amati was a Brabham driver.

No surprises as to what happened next.

In her first practice session at Kyalami, Amati spun a total of six times. She failed to qualify for all three races that she entered. Granted, the Brabham BT60B was nothing more than an under-funded tube on wheels, but still, Amati was consistently three or more seconds behind Eric van de Poele.

Even on the verge of collapse, Brabham had had enough of the Italian glamour girl, replacing her after just three races. Some might be familiar with the name of her replacement: Damon Hill.

Honourable mentions: There’s a fair few here! Richard Robarts and Rikky von Opel struggled to perform in 1974 – resulting in Bernie Ecclestone losing patience with both – while Ricardo Zunino was barely even a “Number Two” when partnering Nelson Piquet in 1979-80. Larry Perkins and Gregor Foitek were also considered.

]]>RejectWatch 2017: Where are they now?https://gprejects.com/news/rejectwatch-2017
Mon, 22 May 2017 18:15:53 +0000https://gprejects.com/?p=966To the untrained eye, it may seem that Formula One drivers simply appear upon their début and vanish into the ether after their career has ended. However, this is Grand Prix Rejects, and a cursory glance at previous articles published on this very website will show that this is not the case.

The vast majority of drivers simply move on to other series once their opportunities in Formula One dry up, and this is certainly true for the less successful of them. As a consequence, it’s not surprising that many of this site’s favourite drivers still find gainful employment long after their last F1 appearance. It’s time to find out just what these old hands are getting up to. This is RejectWatch 2017.

Who counts?

As a brief clarification, Formula One rejects as defined by this site are drivers who entered a World Championship event, but failed to score at least 3 championship points assuming a 10-6-4-3-2-1 scheme. Drivers still active in Formula One are counted and, in Formula One this season, these include (alphabetically): Marcus Ericsson, Antonio Giovinazzi, Esteban Ocon, Jolyon Palmer, Lance Stroll, Stoffel Vandoorne and Pascal Wehrlein.

Drivers who have recently left Formula One often find themselves in high demand, assuming their reputation remains intact, and more recent departures from F1 often find themselves moving in two general directions: other single-seaters and endurance racing.

Formula E

With futuristic bodywork, significant investment and great publicity surrounding the all-electric series, it’s no wonder so many former F1 drivers decide to hook up with Formula E, with no fewer than 20 of the series’ 48 drivers having previously driven in the sport’s premier category. This year, along with luminaries such as Nick Heidfeld and Nelson Piquet, Jr., Formula E can count on the reject presence of Stéphane Sarrazin, Jérôme d’Ambrosio, Jean-Éric Vergne, Esteban Gutiérrez, Lucas di Grassi and reigning series champion Sébastien Buemi. Halfway through the season, Buemi is very much the championship favourite, with five wins in six races. However, if more luck falls his way, the consistent di Grassi will hope to take the championship battle to the last round, held in late July in Montréal. This would match last year’s title fight in which Buemi beat di Grassi in the last round in London’s Battersea Park.

Former Manor driver Roberto Merhi has also announced his intention of competing in the series next season, though he is currently competing in the newly-renamed FIA Formula 2 Championship, having replaced Stefano Coletti at Campos Racing, run by noted reject Adrián Campos.

IndyCar

As Fernando Alonso heads stateside for his highly-publicised entry in the Indianapolis 500, he joins a healthy field of expert drivers who have made their career on the blend of ovals and road courses characteristic of IndyCar. This series’ alternative appeal has also attracted a few Formula One drivers over the years, notably including Juan Pablo Montoya’s return to single-seaters following his NASCAR stint. Former Manor/Marussia driver Alexander Rossi won the Indy 500 in a fuel mileage run last year, and was joined this year by full-time drivers Max Chilton and Sébastien Bourdais, as well as Takuma Sato. Bourdais notably started the season strongly with a win in St. Petersburg (Florida), followed by second place in Long Beach. However, his season was ended when a hefty accident in Saturday’s qualifying session left him requiring surgery for multiple pelvic fractures.

World Endurance Championship

Created in 2012, the WEC has established itself as the world’s premier endurance series, although there have been recent issues over field sizes. This year, only Toyota and Porsche are entering credible LMP1 cars (the less said about ByKolles, the better), while the LMP2 field can now only boast 10 cars. The previously larger grids and quantity of available drives have nonetheless made the series attractive to drivers wanting to compete in a high-performance series.

The number 8 Toyota of Sébastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima on the way to victory at Spa-Francorchamps.

Two races into the season and with the highly-anticipated 24 Hours of Le Mans fast approaching, Toyota is currently leading with the all-reject team of Sébastien Buemi (him again), Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima having won both rounds in Silverstone and Spa. Also competing in LMP1 is three-time Le Mans winner and Caterham’s Francorchamps hero André Lotterer, while Toyota’s part-time third entry features jack-of-all-trades and erstwhile Minardi cameo Stéphane Sarrazin teamed up with countryman Nicolas Lapierre and defending Super Formula champion Yuji Kunimoto.

Jean-Éric Vergne and Lucas di Grassi join Buemi and Sarrazin as Formula E drivers also competing in WEC, driving for Manor in LMP2 and AF Corse in LMGTE Pro respectively, though di Grassi has yet to compete this season. The LMP2 field also features Bruno Senna competing for Vaillante Rebellion in a historically-charged entry with Nicolas Prost and GT veteran Julien Canal, and the LMGTE-Am Aston Martin Racing entry features the recently-profiled Pedro Lamy along with Mathias Lauda and Paul Dalla Lana. They are also joined by HRT and Lotus driver and Channel 4 commentator Karun Chandhok, driving in LMP2 for Tockwith Motorsport in select races.

WeatherTech SportsCar Championship

The series, better known as the IMSA GT Championship, is notable for containing the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring, attracting numerous part-time drivers as well as the more regular GT crowd. As well as the likes of Giancarlo Fisichella and Christian Fittipaldi, Jan Magnussen (father of Haas driver Kevin Magnussen) is completing a full season in the series, now in his fourteenth year representing Corvette. With two class wins in the GT Le Mans category, he and teammate Antonio García are currently leading the class championship.

The marquee races in Daytona and Sebring also attracted other GT and endurance regulars, such as Sébastien Buemi, Stéphane Sarrazin and Bruno Senna in the Prototype class, Pedro Lamy in GT Daytona and Sébastien Bourdais, who won the GT Le Mans class of the Daytona 24 with Joey Hand and Dirk Müller. 2004 Minardi driver and teammate to this website’s favourite Hungarian Gianmaria Bruni has left behind a 10-year stint with Ferrari in GT racing, which led to two WEC titles in 2013 and 2014. He is set to begin driving for Porsche beginning in June this year.

This championship, run by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, serves as a low-cost alternative to the WEC, and benefits from a healthy field over three categories filled with amateurs. Making a return to full-time competition this year is 60-year-old Dutchman Jan Lammers, competing for Racing Team Nederland alongside Frits van Eerd, the founder of (and driver in) the BOSS GP series for recent second-hand single-seaters. Van Eerd is a notable fan of Minardi, having recently organised a demonstration of many of the Italian team’s cars in Zandvoort. The pair, so far, has finished eleventh at the 4 Hours of Silverstone and tenth at the 4 Hours of Monza, both times out of 11 finishing teams in the LMP2 class.

Asian Le Mans Series

Consisting of events in the Far Eastern countries of China, Japan, Thailand and Malaysia from October to January, ALMS can provide a way to keep up form over the off-season in a generally weaker field, and attracts a significant number of GT and prototype drivers. Monegasque GT specialist Olivier Beretta finished joint second in the GT standings in the 2016-17 edition by winning the GT class at Buriram, while the Sepang race was won by an Audi team featuring Minardi driver-cum-A1GP race winner Alex Yoong. Vitantonio Liuzzi also made a guest appearance at the Buriram round, where he finished seventh.

Blancpain Series

The Blancpain GT Series is the latest series to lay claim to being the premier Grand Touring championship in the world, and has the FIA backing to prove it. Stéphane Ratel’s acute marketing nous and the attractive mix of sprint and endurance races have led to an impressively large and talented racing field. Belgian Audi Club Team WRT notably features the all-reject pairing of Will Stevens and Markus Winkelhock in sprint events (though they’re split for endurance races), while Olivier Beretta competes in the endurance events for Spirit of Race (sic), an off-shoot of AF Corse, in the Pro-Am class. After a rocky start to the year, Stevens and Winkelhock scored a podium in the main sprint race at Brands Hatch, but the rejects remain otherwise scoreless thus far.

The #2 Audi of Will Stevens and Markus Winkelhock (Winkelhock driving) leads a pack of cars at Brands Hatch.

The Blancpain brand also operates the Blancpain GT Series Asia, operating on a restricted schedule and mostly with local drivers. This hasn’t stopped Team WRT from sending Will Stevens there to compete part-time with Taiwanese teammate Jeffrey Lee. He is joined in the field by full-time driver Alex Yoong, both driving Audi R8 LMSs, albeit for different teams. Both opened the season with minor points finishes in Sepang, though Yoong followed this with a podium at Buriram with teammate Alex Au.

Stéphane Ratel also runs the Intercontinental GT Challenge, encompassing races longer than the 3-hour and 1000km races of the Endurance Cup. This year, it includes the Bathurst 12 Hour, 24 Hours of Spa, California 8 Hours in Laguna Seca and Sepang 12 Hours. The series has a very changeable roster of drivers, but the entry list at Bathurst included familiar faces, such as Markus Winkelhock in an Audi, as well as Pedro Lamy and Mr. DTM Bernd Schneider in a Mercedes-Benz, joined by Mathias Lauda and Paul Dalla Lana. Czech driver and former Prost substitute Tomáš Enge drove a KTM in the GT4 class.

24 Hours of Le Mans

Yes, the longest event in the Triple Crown of motorsport is part of the World Endurance Championship, but the sheer quantity of one-off appearances ensures that it warrants its own section. Aside from the aforementioned WEC drivers, Le Mans attracts entries from IMSA, ELMS and Blancpain, resulting in the appearances of Jan Lammers in LMP2 (co-driving with van Eerd and Rubens Barrichello), Jan Magnussen and Sébastien Bourdais in LMGTE Pro and Olivier Beretta and Will Stevens in LMGTE Am. The race will take place on June 17-18.

International GT Open

Vitantonio Liuzzi’s Lamborghini in action in Estoril.

Not to be confused with the Intercontinental GT Challenge, this series is a Europe-wide offshoot of the Spanish GT Championship and runs concurrent to the Euroformula Open Championship. A relatively minor championship, it is nonetheless graced by the presence of Vitantonio Liuzzi in a Lamborghini Huracán GT3. After the first two races, held in Estoril, he and teammate Hiroshi Hamaguchi are joint ninth in the standings. Tomáš Enge will also be competing in the upcoming round at Spa-Francorchamps.

24H Series

This multi-class series acts as a loose collection of 12-and-24-hour races, of which very few teams enter more than one or two. None of the full-season competitors are F1 rejects, though this year’s cameo appearances have included Jean-Éric Vergne, Bernd Schneider, Tomáš Enge and 67-year-old Dutchman Michael Bleekemolen of RAM and ATS fame, driving a Seat Leon TCR.

ADAC GT Masters

As well as his Blancpain commitments, noted Formula One race leader Markus Winkelhock is competing in most rounds of the premier German GT series for BMW Mücke with Filip Salaquarda. Winkelhock only rarely performs well in the series, with five recorded podiums since 2011, and so far this year has scored 6 points in four races, a seventh place finish in Oschersleben.

Super GT

It is not lost on the more erudite motorsport fan that there is a whole separate racing scene in Japan, comprising both GT racing and single-seaters. The former category is represented by the Super GT Series, which not only features works Toyota driver Kazuki Nakajima, partnered by former future USF1 driver James Rossiter, but also fan favourite and Super Aguri driver emeritus Yuji Ide, driving a Bentley Continental in the GT300 category. Nakajima has started the year with a fifth place and a race win in Autopolis, while Ide has had a rather subdued beginning to the season, finishing the first three rounds in 20th, 16th and 19th places respectively.

Super Formula

André Lotterer during 2017 Super Formula pre-season testing.

The top series of the Japanese open-wheel ladder, Super Formula (formerly known as Formula Nippon), has its fair share of recognisable names, with former F1 drivers Kamui Kobayashi and Narain Karthikeyan and Red Bull Junior Pierre Gasly all entered. The main contenders, though, are Kazuki Nakajima and André Lotterer, both previously series champions. Nakajima has started the season strongly with a victory in Suzuka, with Lotterer fifth, emulating the current dynamic between the two in WEC.

Super Taikyu Endurance Series

This championship features three-hour races and is considered an alternative to Super GT. It has a wider range of classes, including ST-TCR for touring cars corresponding to TCR regulations. Former Prost and Minardi driver Shinji Nakano competes in this category, driving a Honda Civic with Shinichi Ito and Shinichi Ebisawa. They are favourites for the ST-TCR title, having finished second and first in the first two rounds.

Audi R8 LMS Cup

Alex Yoong‘s partnership with Audi stems from his participation in this East Asia-based series dominated by Yoong since 2014. Although Alessio Picariello currently leads the standings after two races, Yoong remains a strong contender having won the second race, setting the stage for a thrilling championship battle between the Malaysian veteran and the young Belgian.

Stock Car Brasil

Considered to be the final resting place of many Brazilian racing drivers, Stock Car Brasil is the most highly rated Brazilian championship and can boast the presence of Rubens Barrichello. When it comes to rejects, the series can also count among its ranks former Jaguar and Williams driver Antônio Pizzonia, who was roundly criticised earlier this year for causing an accident with Lucas Foresti in Velopark. Pizzonia’s record in Stock Car Brasil is inconsistent at best, and aside from a second place scored in Santa Cruz, he has not recorded another top ten finish in the first six races.

Turismo Carretera

The Argentine counterpart to Stock Car Brasil and celebrating its 80th year of existence this season, this championship is now host to Norberto Fontana and Gastón Mazzacane. Fontana is a former series champion, having won the title in 2006, but has had a difficult start to the year. He is only 29th in the standings, while Mazzacane’s better form puts him in a current seventh place.

Turismo Nacional

A lesser-known rival to Turismo Carretera, Turismo Nacional also benefits from the presence of Norberto Fontana, who is dividing his time between the two series, as well as that of former Minardi prodigy Esteban Tuero, who finished tenth in the championship in 2016 but is yet to make an appearance in 2017. Fontana, with two participations in the series this year, is currently 33rd in the championship with six points to his name.

Miscellaneous

Some drivers have also decided to enjoy some less serious drives, racing in less competitive series or trying something more unconventional.

Karun Chandhok, evidently preferring to keep up his form with lower-stakes racing is now competing in LMP3 Cup UK, where he and teammate Steve Tandy opened the season with third and fourth places in Donington. The #7 T-Sport pair were sitting second in the championship before last weekend’s Brands Hatch round.

Mid-90s reject giant Andrea Montermini still competes part-time in the American SprintX GT Championship Series. Earlier this year, he won the first race driving a Ferrari 488 with Daniel Mancinelli against highly-rated GT drivers such as Jörg Bergmeister, Laurens Vanthoor and Jeroen Bleekemolen (Michael’s son).

Aside from his GT commitments, Jan Magnussen still finds time to drive in the Danish Thundersport Championship, a touring car series he won in 2012 and in which he has won 23 races since 2014. He won two of three heats in the opening round at Jyllandsringen, and will be competing in select races.

Another touring car specialist is BTCC, ETCC and WTCC champion Gabriele Tarquini who, after the departure of Lada from WTCC, found himself without a race drive for 2017. Instead, he is now the lead test driver for Hyundai’s upcoming TCR programme, though he has not abandoned his search for a full-time race drive.

On an even more local level, Michael Bleekemolen, strong from an appearance at the 24 Hours of Dubai, is aiming to complete yet another season in Clio Cup, where he is entered in both the Benelux and Central Europe series. He has yet to compete in a race this year, though, and the date of his first entry of the season remains unclear.

Having made the transition from asphalt racing in 2013, Scott Speed is now in his fifth season in the Global RallyCross Championship, which he won in 2015 and 2016. The man who was, for a long time, the last American F1 driver started the season with victory at Memphis ahead of main rival Tanner Foust. Another podium in Louisville puts him in the current championship lead.

Stéphane Sarrazin on his way to ninth place in the Tour de Corse.

Completing the trifecta of driving in single-seaters, endurance racing and rallying is Stéphane Sarrazin. The Frenchman has been entering select World Rally Championship events since 2004, and this year, he duly finished ninth in the Tour de Corse, scoring two championship points in a Skoda Fabia.

DJ FL is perfect for weddings, local gatherings and corporate events.

Last but by all means not least, Franck Lagorce has diversified his business interests since retiring from full-time motorsport in 2003. The Frenchman, a former Ligier driver, now acts as a driving instructor, TV commentator, car reviewer, management consultant, urban marketer, events organiser, drone pilot and DJ, under the names DJ FL and MC Franck Lagorce. During the winter, Lagorce competes in the ice-racing Andros Trophy, notably alongside Olivier Panis. He finished fifth in the 2016-17 season after narrowly losing out to Jean-Baptiste Dubourg in the 2015-16 title race.

This article only included competitive motorsport. Of course, more F1 rejects remain active in other aspects of the automotive and business worlds. The vast world of historic racing has recently seen appearances from Paolo Barilla and Gianfranco Brancatelli, for instance. Yet more drivers are not currently racing, but may be returning in the future. Resident Twitter hero Giedo van der Garde is now a GP3 driver coach, and all-around hero Alex Zanardi has not announced racing plans for 2017, though he remains successful in hand-cycling and passionate about the sport. Expect him to get in a racing car again before the end of the year.

There is life after F1 after all.

]]>The 2017 GPR Season Previewhttps://gprejects.com/news/2017-season-preview
Sun, 19 Mar 2017 11:30:18 +0000http://gprejects.com/?p=856“It’s like an aspirin, it fixes pretty much everything” said Sebastian Vettel to Motorsport.com, delivering an analogy that Alan Partridge would be proud of. Instead of the usual grumbling from Formula 1’s contingent of drivers, the majority are overwhelmingly positive about the raft of changes that have come into force for 2017. Over the winter, the cars have seemingly gorged on turkey and Christmas pudding; several inches have been added to their waistlines, and the addition of wider tyres has resulted in a mean-but-not-so-lean set of machines.

Then, of course, there’s the lingering doubt that F1’s actually taken a step backwards. Numerous figures from the sport have predicted reduced overtaking on-track, and the increase in downforce (which is expected to contribute to earth-shattering lap records at a multitude of circuits) will make cars harder to follow on-track. Tyres are also far more durable this year, which will delight the fan who wants everyone to push 100% of the time, but will simultaneously disappoint those who enjoy the slightly more nuanced game of pitwall tactics. It’s almost as if “what the fans want” doesn’t always end up being the same thing.

After F1 gained a team at the start of 2016, 2017 brought the winter of discontent for the late Manor team. Erstwhile owner Stephen Fitzpatrick closed the doors for good having been unable to find a suitable buyer, disappointing those who had hoped for Ricardo Gelael to bring his chicken expertise to the grid. With Manor’s demise, the tense fight for 10th place in the constructors’ championship is gone, and chances for young drivers in F1 have dwindled ever so slightly.

For now, let’s focus on who and what has made the journey to 2017. Thankfully, that doesn’t include elimination qualifying.

Mercedes

After winning three pairs of titles on the bounce, the Mercedes team was just getting over the celebration hangover when world champion Nico Rosberg dropped the bomb that he was to retire from F1. After he had made the choice to swap champagne and chequered flags for nappy-changing, Rosberg’s departure left Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda with a very big hole to fill in their lineup. The rumour mill was in overdrive for a few weeks, and although some exotic names were linked to the team, the Silver Arrows made the low-risk option of prising Valtteri Bottas from his Williams seat. Bottas’ placid nature should help the team avoid any conflict between their new charge and Lewis Hamilton, who often butted heads with the occasionally-prickly Rosberg.

Of course, Hamilton is once again the title favourite, and Mercedes’ testing form seems to suggest that they won’t be far off from where they were last year. The rest is up to Bottas; if he can sufficiently raise his game, he can become the match for Hamilton that his predecessor once was. If not, then his one-year deal may start to look shaky…

Prediction: 1st – It’s difficult not to put Mercedes first here. Hamilton and Bottas may be a different lineup, but they should be able to pick up from where the team left off in 2016.

Red Bull – TAG Heuer

After discarding Dany “The Russian Rocket” Kvyat in exchange for Max Verstappen after four rounds last season, the Dutchman turned up at Barcelona for his first race for the senior Red Bull squad, returning home with a win after profiting from the two Mercedes drivers tripping over each other. Daniel Ricciardo also grabbed a second win at Malaysia after Lewis Hamilton’s engine famously gave up at Sepang. Although two victories among a sea of Mercedes dominance is no mean feat, Red Bull will be striving to make its own luck in 2017.

In Ricciardo and Verstappen, Red Bull probably possesses the hungriest line-up on the grid. The technical team – as ever – is quite content to push the technical regulations to the limit, and an innovative snorkel nose to control the airflow at the front of the car is another such example of the engineering brilliance on show under Adrian Newey’s leadership. Renault has also impressed Red Bull with the improvements made to their power unit, and so the ingredients for success are certainly there; whether the team can mix them together is another matter entirely.

Prediction: 3rd – In the past few seasons, 3rd place has been a by-word for “best of the rest”, but a closer front pack should allow Red Bull to challenge for victories. Ferrari may be too strong for them, though.

Ferrari

Last year was yet another season of internal strife in the Ferrari camp, and a reshuffle behind closed door was a contributing factor in James Allison’s switch to rival Mercedes. The performances on-track last season were also a disappointment; the Scuderia fell behind Red Bull in the pecking order, which ultimately culminated in Sebastian Vettel’s radio transcript from Mexico receiving the bleep-button treatment from most corners of the F1 media. This was an example of the frustration which seemed to set in often at Ferrari, and although Vettel often wears his heart on his sleeve when racing, even Kimi Räikkönen was occasionally heard voicing discontent across the airwaves.

2017 represents a fresh chance for Ferrari to start over, and if early whispers are to be believed, then the Prancing Horse seems to be a lot more ready to gallop than last year. Reports suggest that the car is more stable in the corners than the new Mercedes, and consistency on the driver front ensures that Ferrari will have a clear idea of what Vettel and Räikkönen require from their cars to succeed. However, it almost feels like this was last year’s assessment…

Prediction: 2nd – It’s too early to buy into the hype that Ferrari will make the difference to Mercedes, but the evidence for them to challenge on a regular basis is quite compelling.

Force India – Mercedes

After achieving its best championship finish in 2016, snatching 4th from Williams in the final few rounds, Force India is pretty in pink for the new year. Water treatment specialist BWT has showered Vijay Mallya’s squad with enough money to ditch the insipid grey scheme from testing, creating something of a stir on social media in the process.

The team has also had a lineup change for the first time since the start of 2014; Nico Hülkenberg’s unexpected defection to Renault opened up a seat for 2015 GP3 champion Esteban Ocon, who will be Sergio Pérez’s new team-mate for 2017. Although Ocon has only half-a-season under his belt, an impressive performance at a rained-out Interlagos last year highlighted the Frenchman’s talents in a top-level racing car. Furthermore, Pérez’s stock is on the rise once more after collecting further podiums and outscoring Hülkenberg for the second year in a row. This is his first opportunity as the de facto team leader, and he must rise to the challenge if he is ever to return to a front-running team. The new car seems to be middling at best, and weight issues appear to have taken a little nibble out of the overall performance. That said, the Silverstone-based team has worked wonders on a limited budget before, and should be a capable force by the season’s end.

Prediction: 6th – 2017 promises to have a very full-on midfield battle, and Force India may get caught in the crossfire at the start of the year. However, Andy Green’s talented technical team should be able to iron out issues over the course of the season.

Williams – Mercedes

After an emotional end of the season, Williams bid a fond farewell to Felipe Massa, who had decided to retire from Formula 1 at the end of the 2016 season. Within a few months, Massa was back in the fold and ready to race once again. Thanks to Mercedes’ late swoop for Valtteri Bottas and Martini’s demand for an over-25 driver to partner the financially-gifted Lance Stroll, Massa was one of the few names available with experience of contemporary F1 machinery. Expectations were low, and the perception seemed to be that an aging Massa and a barely-of-age Stroll would struggle to keep their heads above water in a tight midfield.

However, things seem to be a little rosier after testing. Performance chief Rob Smedley believes that the new regulations suit Massa’s driving style, and could be capable of reprising his performances of 2008 if all goes well. Stroll seemed to be a little wild in his first week of testing the FW40, giving the mechanics some repair work to do, but a steady second week showed that the Formula 3 champion is capable of learning quickly. He’ll need to work out where the limits are early if he’s to avoid the full weight of the mainstream media on his back.

Prediction: 4th – If Smedley’s glowing comments are to be believed, Massa may return invigorated from his short-lived retirement. Stroll will almost certainly crash a few times, but has the talent to succeed in F1 as long as he’s willing to learn.

McLaren – Honda

It’s been a painful couple of years at Woking, and the recently-renewed relationship with Honda has been fruitless so far as the Japanese engineers have been playing catch-up with their competitors. Making the decision to drop their much-maligned “size zero” concept, Honda became very interested in a Mercedes-style configuration of a split turbo and compressor within the power unit’s architecture.

Since the powertrain is essentially a clean-sheet design, only the most hard-to-please at Honda would expect bulletproof reliability from the get-go, but none were anticipating the litany of mechanical issues from the new design in testing. The oil tank had to be reworked by the engineers, and electrical problems hindered any further running in Barcelona, leaving Fernando Alonso and new driver Stoffel Vandoorne little time to acclimatise to the new car. A return to an orange paint scheme for the first time since the Bruce McLaren days has turned heads, but work needs to be done quickly if the team’s future is to be bright; Woking’s strained relationship with Honda will be on the brink of collapse if things don’t improve.

Prediction: 9th – McLaren’s performance depends on how quickly Honda can recover. Fixing all of the issues will propel them up the grid, but the early season promises nothing but a powerful sense of dread.

Toro Rosso – Renault

Although 2016 was one of Toro Rosso’s more successful years, it can still be considered as something of a mixed bag; the STR11 chassis was lauded as one of the best chassis on the grid, but a year-old Ferrari in the bag and inconsistency in the driver lineup held the team back. Carlos Sainz Jr impressed many with his beaver-like work rate, and was a consistent fixture within the points during the early season. After Verstappen’s promotion, his side of the garage were tasked with repairing a short-on-confidence Daniil Kvyat; the Russian’s post-race interview at Hockenheim laid bare a broken man.

There was a rainbow after the rain, and Kvyat returned from the summer break a bigger match for the highly-rated Sainz. Should both drivers return for 2017 in the same frame of mind, there is the potential to be a very even fight. The new Toro Rosso chassis, complete with striking paint scheme, has definite similarities in concept to Mercedes; although getting reacquainted with the Renault engine has led to a few teething troubles, James Key’s technical team seem able to work miracles on a relatively small budget.

Prediction: 7th – The STR12 is unmistakably dashing, and looks incredibly aggressive. Whether Toro Rosso have the infrastructure to compete at the head of the midfield is another matter entirely.

Haas – Ferrari

Gene Haas’ outfit seemed to go about joining Formula 1 in the right way. Prudent management and aligning the technical operation with an already-established team in Ferrari ensured that Haas was able to fight within the midfield from the very start. Romain Grosjean outclassed team-mate Esteban Gutiérrez over the course of the year, and although results were harder to come by in the late season, Haas proved to be the most successful new team since Stewart joined F1 in 1997. That’s not to say that 2016 was faultless; both drivers sustained a number of brake issues over the course of the year, and it still doesn’t seem to be area that the team has got on top of.

Although often coming across “passionately” across the radio, Grosjean has proven to be an effective team leader, and is partnered by the placid Kevin Magnussen who should represent a step-up over Gutiérrez in most facets. The new VF-17 bears some passing similarities to the Ferraris of the past two seasons, and seems to be a relatively balanced car on-track. Taking advantage of the early-season muddle should once again offer Haas its biggest opportunity to take home plenty of points.

Prediction: 8th – Haas are capable enough of picking up from where they left off last season. Making a concerted step up through the pack seems unlikely, but the team should be able to consolidate their position in the mid-pack.

Renault

The late takeover of the beleaguered Lotus caused Renault a number of headaches, and little was expected of the team after essentially shoehorning their power unit into a chassis designed for a Mercedes. 2016 was a rebuilding year, and Renault was putting money into restoring the depleted resources at Enstone; many of its brightest minds had departed for pastures new under the financial problems experienced at the tail-end of the previous season. The on-track results were essentially an afterthought, and the inexperienced duo of Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer could muster no more than eight points over the year (Magnussen scoring six of them during a swashbuckling Sunday at Sochi).

Although Renault made efforts to court the likes of Sergio Pérez and Carlos Sainz Jr, it was Nico Hülkenberg who made a daring move across from Force India to replace the Haas-bound Magnussen, and the German will hope that leading a manufacturer team will present him with a chance of a long-awaited podium finish. Palmer remains at the team and, although he is perhaps lucky that there was nobody better available, his hard work and steady progress warrants a second chance. The new car seems to be leaps and bounds better than the R.S.16, with Palmer even suggesting that it exceeds expectations.

Prediction: 5th – Too early for podiums, but a quick car and the oh-so-consistent pairing of Hülkenberg and Palmer should guarantee a steady supply of points for the Enstone team.

Sauber – Ferrari

Reaching a financial crisis point, Sauber was rescued last year with investment from the mysterious Longbow Finance firm, and Monisha Kaltenborn will be hoping this new injection of funds will help fire the Swiss outfit back up the grid. Furthermore, Felipe Nasr’s 9th place at the rained-out Interlagos last year helped push Sauber further back onto dry land; this result saw off rival Manor and ended Nasr’s F1 career in a cruel twist of irony that only Alanis Morissette could begin to describe.

The C36 was the first 2017 car to be launched, and the team has traded its dull blue for a more opalescent variant, adding gold stripes to celebrate Sauber’s 25th year in F1. The technical team – now under the leadership of Jörg Zander – has turned back the clock with a bladed air intake, similar to that pioneered by Mercedes in 2010. The car certainly looks aggressive, but is hamstrung with a 2016-spec Ferrari and seems to lack outright pace compared to its other rivals on the grid. Marcus Ericsson stays with the team for a third year thanks to his backing, and Pascal Wehrlein joins the Swede after an impressive debut season at Manor. Wehrlein must beat Ericsson if he is to justify Mercedes’ faith in him, otherwise he can kiss goodbye to his dream of a works Silver Arrows drive.

Prediction: 10th – Sauber seems to be a lot more secure, but still doesn’t quite have the funding to make a concerted charge up the order. Points should be obtainable, but that’s perhaps the maximum the team can realistically aim for.

]]>Obituary: Manor Racinghttps://gprejects.com/news/obituary-manor-racing
Fri, 27 Jan 2017 17:00:33 +0000http://gprejects.com/?p=812After fruitless discussions with a number of prospective investors, Manor Racing has officially called time on its F1 journey after seven years of operation. As the sole remaining team of those introduced in 2010 and having raced under a number of different guises, Manor was a true representation of the underdog spirit that this site loves to celebrate, and brought great joy to our little corner of the internet following their two points-scoring exploits in Formula 1.

James Jakes driving for Manor in F3 in 2007. The team had a long history in junior formulae.

Manor’s F1 operation was conceived in 2009 as an expansion of John Booth’s incredibly successful Manor Motorsport squad which had enjoyed great success in an array of Formula 3 categories and, with Richard Branson’s backing, was entered into the 2010 season under the “Virgin Racing” guise. They joined HRT, Lotus Racing and USF1 as the four teams chosen to expand the dwindling F1 grid, although the latter project died before the season began. Under the technical guidance of Nick Wirth, Virgin Racing explored a CFD-only approach to developing their aerodynamics package. Although this would ensure that the team would save money on wind tunnel testing their first car, the VR-01, it looked primitive in comparison to the rest of the grid. Although drivers Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi were a talented duo, they were unable to coax the VR-01 to any real success.

Timo Glock in action for Marussia Virgin Racing in 2011, their second F1 season.

For 2011, Russian sportscar firm Marussia decided to expand their investment into the team, becoming “Marussia Virgin Racing”. Jerome d’Ambrosio joined the team in place of di Grassi, but the MVR-02 car was little more than an evolution over its predecessor and the team were left to battle at the back with Lotus and HRT once again. Failing to record a classified finish higher than either of the teams around them, Virgin recorded two 12th-place finishes in the World Constructors’ Championship in a row.

A full rebrand to “Marussia F1 Team” for 2012 was a clear indication of the end of Branson’s involvement with the team but, with further Russian backing and cash from new driver Charles Pic, the team still remained financially healthy. Thanks to an excellent 12th-place in Singapore courtesy of Glock, Marussia almost overhauled both HRT and Caterham (Lotus’ new guise) to 10th in the Constructors’ Championship before Vitaly Petrov snatched a last-gasp 11th for Tony Fernandes’ team in the chaotic season finale in Brazil.

Luiz Razia’s time in F1 was short-lived, spanning just one test before his sponsors stopped paying.

Following some financial worries prior to the start of the 2013 season, John Booth and chairman Graeme Lowdon elected to bring in a brand new driver lineup. GP2 front-runners Luiz Razia and Max Chilton were drafted in to replace Glock and Pic, having incentivised the team sufficiently with large chequebooks. Razia took part in one test for the team, before it emerged that his sponsors were defaulting on payments. In his stead, highly-rated Ferrari junior Jules Bianchi replaced the Brazilian following a successful Formula Renault 3.5 campaign. Furthermore, HRT had withdrawn before the season’s start, and so Marussia and Caterham became the only constituents of the rearguard dogfight. Bianchi put in some particularly strong performances to help Marussia overcome Caterham for the first time in the WCC, whilst Chilton was notably classified as a finisher in every single race of the season.

Continuing into the new turbo era of Formula 1, Marussia secured a deal for Ferrari engines for 2014 after former partner Cosworth elected not to supply power units to the new specifications. The new year brought Marussia’s highest and lowest points, and Jules Bianchi’s fantastic 9th place at Monaco not only sent the F1 paddock into raptures, but also cemented his place as a potential star of the future.

Marussia’s season was thrown upside down at the Japanese Grand Prix. Typhoon Phanfone was beginning to approach Japan, ensuring that the race at Suzuka was a wash-out. On lap 42, Adrian Sutil lost control of his Sauber at the Dunlop Curve in the tricky conditions, bringing out yellow flags and a recovery tractor to clear the wreckage. Approaching the corner a lap later, Bianchi went off the track and careened head-first into the tractor at a horrifying speed, his car sliding underneath the vehicle. Airlifted to hospital in Yokkaichi, the prognosis confirmed that the Frenchman had sustained a “severe head injury” and was moved to intensive care, where a number of leading neurosurgeons discovered that the trauma to Bianchi’s head had caused a diffuse axonal injury.

A moving outpour of tributes to Bianchi were made in their thousands by those invested in the sport, and although many had hoped that the talented Frenchman would recover, he would never regain consciousness despite having been able to breathe unaided. Eight months after his relocation to the CHU hospital in his home town of Nice, Jules Bianchi died from his injuries on the 17th July 2015.

Amazingly, Marussia were able to briefly regroup. The team attended the next race at Sochi, and as a gesture towards their fallen driver had prepared Bianchi’s car as normal, although it would remain in the garage for the weekend. Max Chilton managed nine laps in a sombre race before enduring a suspension failure. As a result of the events at Suzuka in 2014, Marussia investor Andrey Cheglakov decided to pull his funding from the team; Marussia went into administration immediately after the Russian Grand Prix, coincidentally at the same time as rivals Caterham.

Roberto Merhi at Malaysia in the Manor MR03B. This was the rescued team’s first race since Sochi in 2014.

Bianchi’s 9th at Monaco and the two points that came with it would prove to be the team’s saviour, as Marussia were now entitled to an attractive amount of prize money. An eleventh hour rescue deal from Ovo Energy chief Stephen Fitzpatrick breathed new life into the team, which would be known as Manor from then on (although they were officially listed as Manor Marussia to retain their claim to any prize money). The 2014 MR03 chassis was hurriedly modified to satisfy the 2015 regulations, fitting a spacer into the front bulkhead to meet the new nosecone ruling. Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi took driving duties, and although neither driver was able to participate in the Melbourne weekend, the team managed to join in with the rest of the season despite their pace disadvantage. Replacing Merhi for a number of races in the latter half of the year, Alexander Rossi claimed a season-best 12th-place at his home grand prix at Austin.

After a turbulent few years, 2016 represented a fresh start for the Manor team. Rolling out an attractive blue and orange colour scheme, Fitzpatrick and new team principal Dave Ryan had secured a supply of Mercedes engines and the driving talents of DTM champion Pascal Wehrlein and GP2 race winner Rio Haryanto. Displaying much-improved pace in testing, Wehrlein was able to show off the virtues of the MRT05 car with some impressive race results, culminating in a brilliant 10th at the Red Bull Ring to claim a world championship point. After the summer break, Haryanto’s loss of Indonesian backing ensured that GP3 champion Esteban Ocon would join the team. After a steady start from the French driver, Ocon displayed some terrific skills at the rain-affected Interlagos en route to 12th. However, Sauber’s Felipe Nasr managed to grab a 9th-place finish at the same venue, which gave the Swiss outfit the keys to 10th in the Constructors’ Championship and the extra prize money on offer.

Unable to jump above Sauber at the Abu Dhabi finale, Fitzpatrick decided to sell up. The team’s holding company Just Racing Services Ltd was put into administration, although this remained separate from the company which held Manor’s entry and ensured that investors could bid for the outfit as a going concern. Unfortunately, no serious investors were forthcoming. US Grand Prix promoter Tavo Hellmund was involved in talks to buy the team, but these broke down. An Asian consortium known as Capital GF were also looking to purchase Manor, but were unable to provide proof of funding in time, leaving Fitzpatrick no choice but to reject their offer. As a result, Manor has now started the process to close their doors.

F1 will be poorer for having lost Manor. The sport has always benefitted from small teams with the means to pick up young drivers, giving them a chance on motorsports’ biggest stage before they move onto bigger and better things. 2016 pairing Pascal Wehrlein and Esteban Ocon have been able to move up the grid following their time at Manor, and everyone at GPRejects will be incredibly disheartened to see them go.

RIP Manor Racing, 2010-2017 / #JB17

Featured image by Anthony Byrne.

]]>Kvyat from hero to zero at home; Magnussen collects Sochi IIDOTRhttps://gprejects.com/news/site-news/kvyat-from-hero-to-zero-at-home-magnussen-collects-sochi-iidotr
Fri, 06 May 2016 07:15:15 +0000http://gprejects.com/?p=428With Max Verstappen peering over his shoulder from the Red Bull junior stable, Daniil Kvyat was in desperate need of a turnaround in form. Shanghai offered hope in that respect, picking up our Infinite Improbability Drive of the Race for his first podium of the year. Sochi completely destroyed that hope.

Kvyat suffered the ignominy of experiencing his worst weekend in Formula 1 in front of an expectant home crowd. Running into the same driver twice in two corners is embarrassing enough, but for that driver to be the same rival who had spent the majority of the previous race complaining about your racecraft to anyone that would listen, the mortification shot through the roof. Reject of the Race for Sochi is merely the cherry on top of the shambolic cake.

The initial coming together was nothing more than an overenthusiastic late lunge on Kvyat’s part, but the follow-up sucker punch was the by-product of an inexcusable lack of forethought. To assume the Ferrari would not at least be somewhat hobbled after such a forceful collision, and to continue on as if nothing had happened, was foolhardy on this part. The secondary contact would not – and should not – have happened, had Kvyat made the reasonable assumption Vettel’s car would be prone to a sudden loss of speed heading through the next corner. The secondary collision was unavoidable, thanks to Kvyat making poor assumptions and positioning his car incorrectly given events seconds earlier.

A long, long way behind Kvyat in second place for the ROTR award was Esteban Gutiérrez. He too made the cut thanks to barrelling into Turn 2, and claiming multiple victims in the process. Red Bull as a whole received a vote of disapproval, mostly for their perplexing tyre strategy which left their pair of drivers marooned at the wrong end of the field, without a real shot at making amends for their first lap woes. Luckily, the scores stopped being counted before Kvyat’s demotion to Scuderia Toro Rosso in favour of Verstappen, else they might have experienced a late surge in the polls for what has been a near universally decried decision.

Just missing out on a place on the reject podium was Emanuele Pirro, with several people irate at stewarding decisions which made Vladimir Putin and his government look comparatively laissez-faire. The final outsider candidate for the award was Turn 2 itself, some lamenting the design of the corner and the issues it has caused not just in F1, but also in GP2 in years past.

Full Reject of the Race results

N.B. Nominees with less than 10 points not included in results.

Another immediate role reversal came courtesy of Renault. Coming off the back of a horrendous performance – one that only Jolyon Palmer’s individual performance (or lack thereof) stopped from earning them ROTR – Les Jaunes once again looked set for a Sunday of misery, following yet another double Q1 elimination.

For once though, Kevin Magnussen found himself dealt a favourable hand, one where his usual midfield opposition kindly removed themselves from the equation at the sharp end in the field. Esteban Gutiérrez may have been an ROTR contender from a neutral standpoint, but he was Renault’s saviour, opening a window of opportunity which the Dane snatched with both hands. A 7th place this early in the season for a team which has looked firmly rooted in the back three rows of the grid so far this season was easily enough to claim Infinite Improbability Drive of the Race.

The only other serious candidates for the award were Fernando Alonso and his McLaren-Honda team. Just up the road from Magnussen in sixth, the Spaniard finally demonstrated the oft-maligned McHonda has genuinely improved since last season’s horror show. Jenson Button making it a double points finish ensured it would be Woking’s best result since Hungary last year, where the pair finished a position higher apiece.